1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to technology for promoting the sale of products and services over a network. More specifically, it relates to technology for promoting the sale of products and services posted on a company web site over the Internet, and for supporting users purchasing products and services over the Internet.
2. Description of Related Art
As use of the Internet has grown, it has become increasingly common for users to purchases products and services (hereinafter referred to collectively as “products”) over the Internet. In line with such societal changes, a number of different types of technologies have been proposed relating to the purchase of products over the Internet. The online shopping cart can be considered the most prominent of these technologies.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,314 describes a typical online shopping cart. This cart is placed on a corporate web site on which a group of products is posted. A user can temporarily place in this cart candidate products that he has selected from the group of products. This cart also manages settlement information; by activating a purchase button, the user can purchase at once all the candidate products. For example, when settlement information needs to be input into a web form, the cart refers to stored settlement information and automatically fills in the web form (auto-fill function). In addition, before activating the purchase button, the user can remove items from the cart that he decides that he does not want to buy. Candidate products will remain in the cart until the user visits the web site again.
However, U.S. Pat. No. 5,715,314 does not conceive of allowing for a cart on a company web site to accept products from a different company. In this regard, U.S. Pat. No. 5,895,454 discloses an online shopping cart that allows for products from a plurality of companies to be placed in a single shopping cart. This cart is placed on a portal site, and a user can place into a single cart products from companies affiliated with this portal site, and make comparisons of those products.
In addition, the following types of additional cart functions have been proposed.
1) By activating a compare button, a user can initiate a price comparison search of candidate products that he has placed in an online shopping cart. However, the range of the price comparison search is limited to the sites with which the companies supplying the online shopping cart are affiliated. By charging a handling fee to the affiliated sites, the company supplying the online shopping cart obtains revenue.
2) A user can use an online shopping cart as a gift registry. Specifically, the contents of an online shopping cart are disclosed to designated parties, who can purchase the products in the cart as gifts.
3) A user can set up a plurality of online shopping carts to be used for different purposes. For example, these can include “an online shopping cart for gifts for a grandchild” and “an online shopping cart for summer vacation travel plans.”
4) An online shopping cart can be placed at a user terminal, so that even when offline a user can look at the online shopping cart and edit the contents thereof.
As described above, the original purpose of online shopping carts is the purchase of candidate items, but there is another important function, namely, the function of temporarily holding items about which a user is unsure whether to purchase or not. Even at an actual store, products that are placed in a shopping cart are sometimes returned unpurchased to the shelves after the shopper changes his mind. Survey results have shown that in a significant percentage of cases, products placed in online shopping carts are not eventually purchased.
Thus, regarding a product about which a user is unsure whether to purchase or not, if a party that provides products were able to place in a cart additional information which may promote a purchase by a user, that party would be able to advertise products that he knows interest the user. It is anticipated that this could lead to a significant expansion in sales. Given that users welcome the price comparison function of online shopping carts, it seems likely that users would welcome constructive suggestions from other companies. In fact, there are businesses that notify a plurality of companies that a user desires to make a purchase, and passes on to the user constructive sales suggestions from those companies, and these businesses are popular.
Of the conventional online shopping carts described above a company can view the contents of a shopping cart, when it is on the company web site. Thus, the company has the opportunity to make constructive sales suggestions. However, other companies cannot see the cart contents, and thus, are unable to make constructive sales suggestions. From the user's point of view, he is unable to compare products from a plurality of different companies.
When an online shopping cart is on a portal site, the portal site is able to show the cart contents to affiliated companies. However, because the desire to purchase can be considered the user's private information, there is a problem with the portal site showing the cart contents to companies or sending additional information such as advertisement information without the user's consent. Thus, it is necessary for the portal site and the user to enter into an agreement beforehand allowing the portal site to notify affiliated companies of the cart contents. But even in this case, the user has no ability to select the companies that will be notified of the cart contents and/or will send advertisements.
With the gift registry function, user A designates another user B, to whom the cart contents can be shown. But there is no system whereby user B is able to place additional information such as advertisements in that online shopping cart.
In addition, when an online shopping cart is on a user's personal computer, neither the portal site nor companies are able to view what is inside the cart. Therefore, they are unable to supply additional information that may be of use to the user.
As described above, with the conventional online shopping cart, no system is provided whereby constructive notification of a desire to purchase and suggestions in response to that notification can be exchanged between a cart owner and a third party.